


Rivers without Bridges

by unveiled



Series: Snippets [4]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 19:25:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveiled/pseuds/unveiled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the end, Erik searches for Charles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rivers without Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this graphic by fassbendersvespa at Tumblr](http://fassbendersvespa.tumblr.com/post/18060315347), and Mariza's "[Cavaleiro Monge](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTvjdkvDZHs)".

Erik followed rumours and half-remembered dreams to what remained of Westchester. The Xavier family home loomed over the pockmarked landscape, a half-ruined Ozymandias that was all that remained of one man’s hopes. The sanctuary of New York called to Erik over the distance, steel girders and weapons singing of safety among numbers, but he let the call settle in his bones and ignored it thereafter. He’d sworn to see his quest through to the end — be it victory or death — and he was nowhere close to being done. If he could ever be done with this, done with Charles.

Bodies of looters, in various stages of decay, lay impaled on the iron spikes of the perimeter walls. Erik floated safely past the motion sensors, still operational despite the fall of the mansion. Even time could not easily undo Henry McCoy’s genius. Erik slipped through a large crack in the wall, where something had punched through from the inside, brushing past ivy vines and morning glories.

Charles would be distressed if he could see the state of the mansion, for all that it held few good memories for him — certainly none in his childhood, except for Raven, and not after Cuba. The carpets and draperies were soggy, rotting slowly, and the wooden panelings too damaged to be salvaged even by the most determined restorer. Erik followed the long, echoing corridor to the central foyer, then up the staircase to the room that was once his and Charles’s.

Nothing. Erik swallowed back bitter disappointment. It was folly, to think that his long, arduous chase could be so easily concluded. He dumped his pack and sat down on the bed, dust and must rising to the nose, his helmet weighing heavily on his head.

Daylight was fading fast, the blackened limbs of dead trees throwing crazed shadows across the floor. It wouldn’t hurt to spend the night in the mansion, he thought. The place was safer than anything else he could reach before nightfall, even if it was lonely and haunted by remembrances of things past. He wondered if Raven was well, if she had forgiven him yet.

Erik ate a tin of carrots in brine, sitting cross-legged on the bed. He didn’t risk switching on the lights to find out if they still worked — it would be like sending out a flare for all to see, and he was too tired to risk a confrontation. His journal and an elderly copy of _The Once and Future King_ , found secreted away in the bedside drawer, provided sufficient distraction until it became too dark to see.

He tucked the book into his pack and resolutely did not think of the _Property of Charles F. Xavier_ written in a neat, old-fashioned copperplate across the title page.

He didn’t bother to undress, but meticulously went through his nightly ritual: scattering a bag of nails and buckshot around the bed, melting the latches and locks, a silent recitation of names and faces. Erik slid the helmet off and placed it on the pillow next to his, curling up on top of the sheets and closing his eyes.

The dream came almost immediately: Charles in the days before the world crumbled around them, his skin bared to the morning light and Erik’s hungry eyes. Fucking himself on Erik’s cock, trying to bite back the noises that broke free of his red, red mouth, always looking so _shocked_ that he could be made so dirty and unthinking. Erik would have savoured the way Charles leaned into the vicious twist of his fingers around Charles’s cock — so much, god — but Charles’s hands cupped around his face always gave him pause, made him feel so tamed and conquered, knowing that his mastery of Charles’s body was always at Charles’s behest.

In this dream, Charles leaned down to place his mouth next to Erik’s ear and whisper, _Promise me. Always. That you’ll find me. That you’ll never let me_ —

 _I promise_ , Erik said, helpless.

 _Good_ , Charles said. _Wake up, I’m waiting_.

 

**END**


End file.
